Another Sunday Morning
by Maaya
Summary: None of them are entirely sure how it had happened. Mondlery ficlet.


**A/N: **Experimental ficlet with Mondler-y undertones, if you want to go into the details. Probably early seasons, intended to be set before London, but I realized now that it can be read either way, really. ^^

None of them are entirely sure how it had happened. Mondlery ficlet.

**Another Sunday Morning**

None of them are entirely sure how it had happened, but it is probably entirely Phoebe's fault.

It is an entirely boring Saturday evening and with the exception of Joey none of them have plans. All of them are feeling somewhat ashamed of their empty lives, all of them eventually end up in the girls' apartment. Ross is first because he simply invites himself over for dinner; several months after his divorce he is still not used to or comfortable with having to eat his meals alone. Chandler is next, offering no real explanation as he grabs an apple on the way to the couch, settling next to Ross to become fully engrossed in the re-run of 'Three is Company' that is airing. Phoebe is the last one, muttering something about drug dealers in Portugal and laughing somewhat nervously when they ask her about it.

Halfway through their excruciatingly boring evening, Phoebe idly suggest that they play truth or dare.

All of them protest, but somehow Phoebe alone manages to outvote them.

It starts out all right. Truth is an entirely boring alternative so the game more or less ends up as a series of dares. Ross has to lick the underside of Rachel's bare foot. Monica almost cries as she has to spread a handful of uncooked rice on the floor. Chandler does three somersaults on the floor and comes up rubbing his head. Somewhere along the line, alcohol is brought into the game. Shots are had. New cocktails are born. Things are merry.

The next day Rachel is one who wakes up first; something is tickling the underside of her bare foot. Her head is heavy and her mouth feels like cotton that has absorbed pure vodka and then been left to dry. She runs her tongue over her teeth, grimacing. The apartment is bathed in dim light and it is probably still very, very early. Her neck hurts and she realizes that it is probably because she had been sleeping on the floor, wrapped in a blanked but with not pillow except for a telephone directory tucked under her cheek. By her feet Ross is tucked up in a blanket of his own, his breathing most probably what had been tickling her. She pokes his nose with her foot in absentminded revenge while she pushes herself into a sitting position, keeping the blanked wrapped around her shoulders. Ross responds with a snore that becomes a snort as he wakes up.

The sound, in turn, startles Chandler awake and he falls off the couch with a somewhat high-pitched yelp that makes them all wince. Somehow he manages to bring Monica down with him and they all blink in confusion at the sight.

"Where did the handcuffs come from?" Phoebe asks sleepily from the armchair, holding a hand up to cover her yawn.

Monica tests her wrist against the metal, frowning in dazed confusion as Chandler's wrist follows. Her hair on the left side of her head if pressed against her face, tests of it stuck to her face where she has been drooling. Later Chandler will find several wet spots on his shirt as well. Right now, he can't breathe.

"Heavy," he gasps, back against the floor with Monica's elbows digging into his ribs. Monica rolls off of him, her cheeks turning a little pink, Chandler's arm following her. He, too, blinks at the handcuffs.

"Where are the keys?" Monica demands, holding her wrist up. Chandler's arm dangles after her, obedient and slack.

They all blink at her.

"I feel sick," Chandler mumbles, turning a bit green.

Monica's eyes narrow. "No. Not while you're attached to me you're not."

Chandler looks conflicted as his mind probably comes up with at least ten jokes he wants to crack, but he clamps his mouth shut, swallowing tightly.

It turns out no one has the key. Even more mysteriously, no one appears to be the owner of the handcuffs. It is all very confusing, and becomes even more so when they realize that it is only five o'clock in the morning. Rachel steals a pillow from the couch and lies down again, willing her head to stop hurting. Phoebe abruptly starts snoring in the middle of a sentence. Ross looks at Monica and Chandler apologetically, wrapping his own blanket closer to his body, looking more like a five-year-old than anything. It is not like they can do anything about it until the stores open and one of them can run down to buy a metal-cutting saw, his shrug conveys.

As the only two people left awake, Chandler and Monica stare at each other and their joined wrists. Monica is the first one to shrug, climbing onto the couch again. Chandler looks at her with a frown, roughly the same expression he would use for a particularly complicated statistics problem at work, hesitating until Monica impatiently tugs at his wrist.

Once they are aware of each other it is a bit difficult to fit on the couch together, yet neither of them thinks to suggest moving to a bed. In the end Monica presses her face against Chandler's chest, feeling comfortably warm and surprisingly serene, and they both fall back asleep.


End file.
